That was the message Oakland City Administrator Deanna Santana delivered to a cadre of staff members in Oakland City Hall at a meeting this week.

After five months on the job, Santana recognizes what many Oakland residents have known for a long time: The city's government is a hot mess, a dysfunctional place where the rules seem to apply only when our esteemed elected officials choose to follow them.

She's also discovered some elected officials have intimidated and threatened employees who refuse to go along to get along.

"It's deep-seeded in the organization," Santana said. "If we're going to have any chance of succeeding, we need to understand the environment that fosters that kind of behavior."

Santana has the challenge of trying to clean up an institution with sketchy ethical practices and a long tradition of nepotism, favoritism and dysfunction.

Incidents such as those hardly inspire any staff member to come forward with a complaint. Against an elected official or a politically connected colleague? Who would dare?

Santana's predecessors did little to help.

Former City Administrator Dan Lindheim spent his days trying to explain Dellums' lackluster performance - and sometimes even the mayor's whereabouts. He succeeded Deborah Edgerly, who was fired in 2008 after she was accused of warning her nephew about a looming police raid.

Santana is trying to wipe away nearly a decade of mismanagement and put a stop to the practice of political meddling in staffers' duties, an oft-exceeded boundary that's clearly drawn in the City Charter.

Most recently, that effort has involved an ongoing issue with Councilwoman Desley Brooks and her efforts to build and fund a teen center in her district. Santana is preparing to release a report on the project that addresses related construction bids, among other things. "We're looking at it from A to Z," she said.

The FBI has also questioned contractors about why the city's Redevelopment Agency requested bids from them after construction work had been completed.

"It's so important that people believe in the integrity of their government, and it seems every year people believe in it less," Councilwoman Libby Schaaf said. "What Deanna is doing is critical for Oakland."

What Santana is doing for Oakland's city staff members may prove to be even more important in the long run.

"It's better to fight on your feet than die on your knees," she told employees at the meeting. "Have the courage to speak up when you see fraud, corruption or are asked to do something that's against rules."

By examining Brooks' teen center, Santana is leading by example and inspiring, by her deeds, not her words, others to do the same.

"I don't look at this as me being tough," she said. "I look at this as me doing my job."